SPIRILLUM CHOLERJE ASIATIC JE. 4(>7 



markedly to tliis point in the proceedings of the last 

 cholera conference. But during the last decade the 

 tendency to draw up a scheme of cholera epidemics, and 

 the desire to find a single causal factor in explanation of 

 the peculiarity of its course, has come to the front so 

 exclusively that it seemed necessary to draw especial 

 attention to the multiplicity of the factors which come 

 into play, and to point out in detail what factors can 

 produce regular local and seasonal variations in cholera 

 epidemics, and what factors may lead to irregular and 

 accidental variations. 



These deductions are chiefly based on the biological 

 peculiarities of the comma bacilli as we have learned 

 them from Koch's investigations, and on the assumption 

 that cholera is contagious, and that the contagium is 

 contained in the comma bacilli. 



These views are, however, not as yet accepted by all views of the 

 cholera investigators; on the contrary, the "localistic" 

 view brought forward by von Pettenkofer, Cuningham, and 

 their followers, is opposed to this " contagionistic " 

 standpoint. Cuningham assumes that in order to origi- Cunin 

 nate a cholera epidemic it is not at all necessary that a V1 

 patient suffering from cholera should enter the place 

 where it begins, but on the contrary that cholera occurs 

 everywhere sporadically, and that favourable local condi- 

 tions are alone necessary to lead to the outbreak of an 

 epidemic. This peculiar view is only a possible one on 

 the arbitrary assumption that every case of violent 

 diarrhoea is a case of true Asiatic cholera. This view 

 was not easy to upset in any individual case so long as 

 we had only symptomatic and pathological anatomical 

 differences to enable us to distinguish between cholera 

 asiatica and cholera nostras; it is, however, quite un- 

 tenable, since we have found a marked difference between 

 the two diseases, in that the characteristic cholera bacilli 

 are always present in the one and never occur in the 

 other. 



